


Monster

by Strings (fangirlgeekout)



Series: Monster 'verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Monster of the Week, Team Free Will, Tickling, Ticklish Castiel, Wings, tickle monster - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 07:33:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13497528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirlgeekout/pseuds/Strings
Summary: Team Free Will goes hunting and finds something they never expected.---Dean blinked. “So you’re telling me this-” he motioned at the scene before them - “has been killing people?”"People tend to die when they can’t breathe, yeah.”Dean pursed his lips. “What about angels?”“Hm?” Sam glanced up. “Oh, no, he should be fine. He doesn’t really need oxygen in the first place.”





	Monster

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning, this is a totally ridiculous self-indulgent ficlet. I was daydreaming about goofy little scenarios that fell into just the right place between plausible and absurd that I could imagine them happening in an episode (because what else does Supernatural do better than toe that line - or stumble drunkenly across it and do jazz hands from the other side). And then my brain squee’d this one out.
> 
> Originally posted Jan 2014 on [Tumblr](http://wordstrings.tumblr.com/post/72912987556/monster).

“ _CAS_!”

The Winchesters’ firearms were trained at… something. Nothing. They really weren’t sure, which would have been the most concerning issue if Castiel wasn’t being dragged down the dim hallway by something invisible.

Cas’ face was carved into determination as he kicked aggressively at whatever had him by the ankle. He grabbed blindly at the floor and walls, which were skimming under his back and fingers at an alarming speed. The passageway was coming up on a 90-degree turn. He could hear the brothers pounding down the hall after him, Dean shouting something about calling Bobby. The  _thing_  took the corner at full speed, and Cas slammed into the wall at the turn. He grimaced and blinked back the disorientation, scrabbling for a hold on something, anything.

”Are you calling him?!” Dean snarled as they ran, taking a mental inventory of the different types of ammunition weighing down his jacket.

“ _Yes_ , shut up!” Sam fumbled his shotgun in the crook of one elbow as he held his phone up to his ear. They skidded around the corner and almost missed the open doorway on the right.

“Wait, there!” Dean lurched and nearly lost his footing trying to backtrack. He stumbled into the room, handgun at the ready. “Cas!”

The angel was on the floor, scrambling backwards on his elbows, eyes wide. Dean’s eyes darted around the room, searching for a target. Sam swung in behind him, pumping his shotgun one-handed with his cell phone still active at his ear waiting for Bobby to pick up.

Whatever had pulled Castiel away was definitely still here. Cas’ leg jerked out straight as something yanked on it, hauling him forward. He strained in opposition and flicked his wrist to bring his angel blade glinting into the light. But something struck his arm, hard; the sword went clattering across the room.

Dean cursed. “I don’t even know what to aim at!”

“ _Bobby_!” Sam sounded simultaneously stressed and relieved. “That thing - I need anything you’ve got,  _now_.”

A weight hammered into Cas’ chest, thudding his head and shoulders back against the floor. He struggled under his unseen assailant, grappling against what he could only determine at this point to be a flailing mass forcing its way on top of him.

Dean pulled his knife and lunged forward. Something flung out and slammed into his ribs, sending him crashing back against the wall.

“That’s… really vague, Bobby.” Sam was frowning into the phone. “No, I  _can’t_  tell you what it looks like, we can’t  _see it_.”

Dean curled an arm around his chest and winced. “Tell me he’s tellin’ you something goddamn useful, Sammy!”

Sam scowled and shushed him with a wave of his hand.

The rhythm in the angel’s chest was growing erratic. His blue eyes were as wide as Dean had ever seen them, nostrils flaring, jaw clenched. He suddenly curled and grunted, like something had punched him in the stomach. Then his head was thumping back against the floor with a grimace.

No, not a grimace. A smile. That couldn’t be right. Dean fiddled with the knife in his hand and considered the risks in throwing it. He braced against the wall and pushed himself up on his feet, cringing and pressing a hand to his bruised ribs.

Castiel choked out a guttural snort. If he didn’t know any better, Dean would have thought it sounded like the start of a laugh. But then the angel did it again, and okay, that was definitely a smile.

"Is it… licking your face like a puppy or something?” Dean asked suspiciously, lowering his knife.

“N-no…” Cas arched back, shoving at whatever-it-was, and  _giggled_.

Dean traded looks with his brother, who gave a sort of confused shrug. Sam pinned the phone at his shoulder to dig a receipt out of his pocket, and started hastily scribbling something on the back. “Wait, Bobby, slow down - how is that even spelled?”

The giggling angel was hunching up, forearms raised defensively at his chest. Then he squealed and burst into full-on laughter.

The Winchesters stared. Sam’s pen paused mid-word.

“You know what, just take a photo of the page and send it to me. Thanks, Bobby.” Sam ended the call and slid his pen behind one ear.

The older hunter screwed up his face in bewilderment as Cas laughed and squirmed frantically on the floor. “So, uh… what have we got?”

“Bobby’s best guess is some kind of… bogeyman… thing.”

Dean stared at him incredulously. “You’ve gotta be kidding. That’s like looking at a humpback whale and saying  _oh maybe it’s some kind of fish_.”

“Whales aren’t fish, Dean.” Sam’s phone beeped with an incoming message and he squinted at the screen.

“Every culture in the  _world_  has a bogeyman legend - it could be  _any_  of them!”

"And hopefully this incantation will get rid of this one, but we won’t know until we try. I have to be able to read it first.” Sam zoomed in on the tiny screen of his phone. “This is going to be a pain in the ass.”

“Well, you know, no rush or anything; not like we’ve got an angel laughing himself to death here, God knows why.”

“Yeah, I’m sort of developing a theory about that.”

Dean flinched when Castiel’s laughter abruptly jumped an octave. He’d never heard the angel do anything more than huff in annoyance, certainly not laugh like this. The guy always seemed kind of vaguely grumpy. “Care to share with the rest of the class? Because the best I can figure is that it tells  _really_  good jokes telepathically.”

The phone beeped as Sam pressed buttons to pan around the photo of the book page Bobby had sent. “Well, a bogeyman-creature that can sneak up on you, pin you down, and make you laugh hysterically…” He cocked an eyebrow and trailed off.

“You have  _got_  to be shitting me,” Dean breathed. “Like a  _tickle monster_?”

Sam looked up and gestured with his phone. “What else does it look like to you?”

Cas was curled up on his side, twitching and cackling and gasping. His arms were wrapped tightly around himself and wet paths streaked from his squeezed-shut eyes.

Dean blinked. “So you’re telling me  _this_ -” he motioned at the scene before them - “has been  _killing_  people?”

"People tend to die when they can’t breathe, yeah.”

Dean pursed his lips. “What about angels?”

“Hm?” Sam glanced up. “Oh, no, he should be fine. He doesn’t really need oxygen in the first place.”

“ _H-hhhhhh_ -” Cas was squinting pleadingly up at the hunters through tear-soaked lashes, panting spasmodically. “ _Hhhehehelllllp_!” A giggle-snort launched him back into desperate laughter.

“No way, man,” Dean said, raising his hands. “I’d take a bullet for either of you, but I’m not getting in the way of that thing.”

“Alright, I think I’ve got this,” Sam muttered, though he didn’t sound incredibly confident. He scrolled up to the top of the image and started reading aloud, complex syllables that sounded like gibberish. A few of the sounds tangled together on his tongue. He made a face and backed up over them to get it right.

Castiel’s steadily-rising laughter was reaching a startling pitch as Sam faltered through the foreign incantation. Dean thought he caught a few nonsense syllables rasping out of the angel’s throat, too.

Sam raised his voice to compete with the volume, but stumbled again over the convoluted words. “Dammit, I don’t even know for sure  _what language_  this is. I could be saying it all wrong, I have no idea.”

“Just keep going!” There was an underlying tone, a static, Dean could perceive building beneath Castiel’s reverberating laughter. “Hurry up!”

The taller hunter picked up the pace as well as he could, the babbling words spilling out of his mouth as he held the little cell phone screen closer to his face.

Then the monster must have hit a sweet spot, because Cas was suddenly screeching, contorting, wailing in unmitigated hysterics.

Dean cupped his hands over his ears just in time to muffle the almighty shriek that shattered the windows.

Shards of glass tinkled on the floor. The last pings mingled with the stuttered giggles rolling out of the trenchcoated heap in the middle of the room. The older hunter turned to his brother, hesitantly uncovering his ears and straightening up from the ducked position he’d instinctively taken.

Sam snapped his phone shut. “ _Adiós_ , tickle monster,” he grinned.

“…So that really just happened, then,” Dean said. “That’s a real thing.”

“Quite real, apparently,” Cas’ frayed voice contributed. Its gravelly texture was far rougher than usual. He coughed and struggled to sit up.

It only took Sam three steps to be at his side. “Easy,” he said, supporting the angel’s shoulder. “Sit for a couple minutes until you’ve, uh, recovered.”

“Okay, but besides that-” Dean’s face morphed into childish joy - “our angel is ticklish, Sammy.”

“No, Dean.”

“But-”

“ _No_.”

“Alright, alright.” Dean tried not to pout. He knew Sam would be a bit more receptive to a little fun once the residual stress of the case had worn off. He retrieved the heavenly blade from the other side of the room, then offered a hand to the exhausted angel. “Let’s get out of here. Wanna ride with us, Cas? You look like you might accidentally appear halfway inside a wall or something if you tried zapping anywhere.”

“That would probably be prudent,” Castiel answered, grasping Dean’s hand and heaving up on his feet. He grabbed Sam’s shoulder for support when his knees didn’t quite cooperate.

The hunters helped him outside, where he finally insisted on walking unaided. As they all climbed into the Impala and Dean started the engine, he couldn’t help looking into the rearview mirror at the back seat and asking, “So, Cas - most ticklish angel in the garrison?”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Monster: The Victim](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13497702) by [Strings (fangirlgeekout)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirlgeekout/pseuds/Strings)
  * [Team Free Will Adopts a Monster](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13497850) by [Strings (fangirlgeekout)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirlgeekout/pseuds/Strings)
  * [Just a Taste](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15524799) by [Sweet_Enerliel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweet_Enerliel/pseuds/Sweet_Enerliel)




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